White House, Hill press military on sexual assaults

A White House official said they have discussed steps to get the issue under control. | AP Photos

“It is my strong belief … the ultimate authority has to remain within the command structure,” Hagel said this week when asked about such a proposal. “What’s going on is just not acceptable, and we do have to go back and review every aspect of that chain of command, of that accountability. … But I don’t think taking the ultimate responsibility away from the military — I think that would just weaken the system.”

While lawmakers are proposing a spate of standalone legislation, the biggest mover for changes to the way the military handles sexual assault will come in the form of this year’s defense authorization bill, which committees are set to begin marking up in late May.

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House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said Thursday that “the time for holding military commanders accountable is past due,” and he expects “initiatives to combat sexual assault” will again be a significant component of this year’s bill.

Obama, who was traveling in Texas, did not attend the White House meeting with lawmakers, but presidential press secretary Jay Carney reiterated to reporters that the president has “zero tolerance for sexual assault in the military,” adding that Obama believes that “anyone who engages in sexual assault is dishonoring the uniform they wear.”

Although a Pentagon report this week detailed an increase in sexual assault across the military services, congressional attention has focused specifically on the Air Force.

The service had already been under fire for commanders’ decisions to overturn sexual assault convictions from courts-martial and the wide-ranging sex abuse cases at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, but there was a new flash point — the Air Force’s sexual assault prevention officer was arrested and charged with sexual battery.

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski allegedly groped a woman while drunk early Sunday in a nightlife district not far from the Pentagon. He was arraigned in court Thursday, and a trial was set for July 18.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told lawmakers he was “appalled” by the charges against Krusinski and that it was “unacceptable” that sexual assault happens anywhere in the Air Force.

But Welsh soon found himself under fire from lawmakers, who said he’d engaged in victim-blaming when he suggested that “hookup culture” was in part to blame for the continued pattern of sexual assault.

“Roughly 20 percent of the young women who come into the DOD and the Air Force report that they were sexually assaulted in some way before they came into the military. So they come from a society where this occurs. Some of this is the hookup mentality of junior high, even high school students now,” Welsh told the Senate Armed Services Committee, adding that “the same demographic group moves into the military.”

Tsongas said Welsh had uttered an “unfortunate choice of words.” And Turner said the general was “off the mark — and wrong.”

“This is more of the blame the victim instead of blame the perpetrator,” Turner said. “The issue that we have here is one of a culture in the military that is unlike anything that we see in civil society, where we have tens of thousands of sexual assaults and less than 3,000 people are willing to come forward.”

Welsh denied the allegations, telling POLITICO his comment “was certainly not blaming the victim; it was based on some young men treating young women with a complete lack of respect.”